Monday, February 28, 2011

My Month of Living Penguinically--I've Got to Read Upcoming Books from Geraldine Brooks and More

We have a really great event schedule this spring. I really couldn't be happier. It's a wonderful mix of big names and developing authors, fiction and nonfiction, large publishers and small press titles, and several that are subsidy published. (We used to term this kind of self-publishing "vanity", a term that was a wee bit disparaging.)

But one thing I noticed as I was booking events is that while we're well represented at several major publishing houses, we are particularly well represented at the imprints of Penguin USA*. And that's why I've decided that March is my month of reading Penguinically. In order to get the job done, I've got to read as many of these upcoming event books as possible.

Sunday, March 13, 7 pm--Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas appearing for Life on the Line. The only way I could convince Chef and his business partner to come was by ticketing the event to ensure some decent sales numbers. The cost is $25*, including the book, which, by the way, is less than the cost of the book ($27.50). Tomorrow's post is totally devoted to this book, because I just finished it (yes, I'm always looking ahead, even on reading projects). It takes place at Boswell. Buy tickets here.

Sunday, March 20, 2 pm--Scott Korb, author of Life in Year One: What was the World Like in First Century Palestine. This is a free, in-store event.

Wednesday, April 6, 7 pm, co-sponsored by the MilwaukeeItalian Film Festival--Paolo Giordano, author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers. The author will be reading in Italian, with the traditional English reading by Angela Damiani. This is a free, in-store event.

Tuesday, April 12, 7 pm, at Alverno College's Wehr Hall--Anne Lamott, author of Imperfect Birds. I'm hoping to have tickets to this uploaded on Alverno Presents' website shortly. The cost is only $16, as the book is a paperback.*

Friday, May 6, 7 pm--Nathaniel Philbrick, author of The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of Little Big Horn. We already know we're using our new projector for this! This is a free, in-store event.

Thursday, May 12, 7 pm--Geraldine Brooks, author off Caleb's Crossing. Her new novel is about the first Native American to go to Harvard.We're taking advice from Next Chapter and will have a small ticket charge of $5, offering light refreshments from Beans and Barley. We'll cap the tix at a number to be announced when I figure it out.

All that and our next book club pick is Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap, being discussed on Monday, March 7, at 7 pm. That said, as I looked at the calendar, I saw many other books from many other publishers that I really want to read. Fortunately I found a few where I'd already read the book. I was going to put them in parentheses, but it seemed better to list those too.

This Wednesday, March 2, 7 pm--Hannah Pittard, author of The Fates will Find Their Way.

Wednesday, April 13, 7 pm--Anchee Min, author of Pearl of China, the paperback edition of her historical novel about Pearl Buck.

Friday, April 15, 7 pm--Valerie Laken with the launch event for her new story collection, Separate Kingdoms.

Friday, April 29, 7 pm--Julie Orringer, author of The Invisible Bridge. We are actually doing two events with Orringer. Our evening event will by my semi-annual book club presentation, so you'll first hear about 15 minutes of new book club picks. We're also co-sponsoring a "lunch and learn" at the JCC . More on that later.

Oy, that's not much. Good thing I get another reading spree on Tuesday morning.

*Event imprints besides Penguin include Viking, Riverhead, Pamela Dorman, and Gotham.

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